Russia under the Old regime

THE ANATOMY OF THE PATRIMONIAL REGIME

On certain occasions, usually during periods of national crisis when the monarchy needed the support of the 'land', the Duma was enlarged and turned into an Assembly (Sobor). (Like 'Boyar Duma', the common name, 'Land Assembly' or Zemskii Sobor, is a nineteenth-century invention.) When that happened, all the members of the Duma received personal invitations to attend (a characteristic detail, indicative of the Duma's lack of corporate status); and so, too, did the high clergy. In addition, invitations were dispatched to the provinces to have the service class and tiaglo-bearers send their representatives. No election procedures or quotas were established; sometimes the instructions requested that as many representatives as desired should come. The first known Assembly met in 1549. In 1566, Ivan IV convoked one to help him out with fiscal and other difficulties occasioned by his unsuccessful war in Livonia. The golden age of the Assembly followed the Time of Troubles (1598-1613). In 1613, an Assembly with a particularly broad representation (it included black peasants) elected to the throne Michael, the first of the Romanovs. It then sat in almost continuous session until 1622, helping the bureaucracy re-establish order in the war-ravaged country. As the new dynasty consolidated its position, Assemblies were convened less frequently. In 1648-9, at a time of serious urban disorders, an Assembly was asked to ratify the new Code. The last Assembly met in 1653, after which that institution vanished from Russian life.

There are so many superficial similarities between the Muscovite Assemblies and the Estates General of early modern Europe (including the time of their suspension) that analogies are inevitable. Nevertheless, if there is disagreement among Russian historians as to the historic function of the Duma, there is little debate over the Assemblies. Even Kliuchevskii, who regarded the Duma as Russia's effective government between the tenth and eighteenth centuries, regarded the Assemblies as a tool of absolutism. His view of the Assembly of 1566 - that it was a 'consultation of the government with its own agents'" - applies to all the other Assemblies as well. The principal difference between western Estates General and the Russian Assemblies derives from the fact that Russia had nothing comparable to the three western 'estates', which were legally recognized corporate entities, all of whose members enjoyed rights and privileges appropriate to their status. Russia had only 'ranks' (chiny), and these of course defined one's position vis-a-vis the tsar. The Russian Assemblies were gatherings of 'all the ranks of the Muscovite state' (vse chiny moskovskogo gosudarstva). Participants in them were considered to be performing state service and received pay from the treasury; attendance was a duty, not a right. As in the case of the Duma, there were no rules of procedure, no systems for selecting participants (representatives), no schedules; some Assemblies met for several